Zalia finished pulling on the shirt Ember had bought for her, having just thoroughly cleaned herself in a bubbling river. She pulled on the floppy broad brim hat with a sigh, completing the farmer look that was a matching outfit with what Aylie was wearing back at their temporary camp. Her vault was open there, the others resting within its safe and comfortable confines. Zalia was actually considering if she could shape the plants in the herb section at the back to make seats or comfortable cots. Perhaps some living vines could be fashioned into hammocks.
She bundled up her old clothes and walked back to the vault. Upon stepping through the door, Aylie dashed up to inspect her, looking up under the brim of her own floppy hat.
“Now we match,” Zalia said, managing to dredge up a pinch of enthusiasm to put into the words.
Aylie grabbed her hand excitedly, dragging her to the back of the vault, Zalia managing to dump the old clothes into a storage slot in passing, to where Ember and Boreal were. There, Boreal was sitting sullenly and it took Zalia a moment to realise why. Some of her fur had been braided into twin braids running from behind her ears down the length of her neck. Twined into those braids were some little blue flowers.
Zalia couldn’t help but smile and chuckle to herself at the sight. At least she wasn’t the only one suffering a makeover.
It had only been two days of travel, another two weeks ahead of them at the pace they were moving at. With Ember and Aylie needing to sleep eight hours or so every day, it was slow going. Boreal and Zalia could probably have made the trip in a week to a week and a half.
So far, there hadn’t been any major run-ins with demons, though they had seen some from afar. Zalia had gone on cleansing the corrupted parts of the world, doing her best to make sure it didn’t overcome the nature around them.
Ember was sitting on the ground, still in her armour, smiling up at Zalia.
“Suits you,” Ember commented.
“I’m sure it does,” Zalia grumbled.
The beige shirt and thick brown pants were simple at least, that much was a comfort. It honestly wasn’t that different to what she had worn before, though the hat felt a tad unnecessary.
Boreal was giving Zalia a careful sideways glance that looked like she was asking for help. Aylie had sat down and started twining a few violet flowers into the braids now.
“Looking good Boreal, I like the flowers,” Zalia said cheerfully.
Boreal lay her head down on her paws in surrender, letting out a sigh. When had she learnt that mannerism?
“Alright, alright. We better get going again then. Ready to walk a bit more?” Zalia said, directing the question at Aylie.
She seemed reluctant but didn’t complain or argue, standing up to leave the vault.
Ember also stood up with a clank, picking up her sword, sheathing it and slinging her shield. Zalia remembered when she had needed to carry around her bow, sword and armour with her. What a hassle it had been. Her armour was visible on a mannequin at the back of the vault, something that had only formed at Zalia’s constant use of the space to store the armour.
They left the vault, Zalia closing it with a little popping sound, a whole bunch of flowers dropping to the ground from the closed portal. The ones Aylie hadn’t had time to tie into Boreal’s braids.
They began their travel again, ever northwards towards the mountain home of Zalia’s friend Glemp and whatever unknown goal the starlight wolf had hinted would be there.
Aylie, for her part, was thoroughly enjoying the trip, inspecting many of the plants they passed by. Zalia often used Flora identification to read a little bit of the history and uses for the plants Aylie took particular interest in and told her about it. When Ember started to give Zalia looks like she was wondering if she was making it up, Zalia informed her that it was a Bronze upgrade of one of her abilities.
Things actually started to look a lot better the further north they travelled. Less areas of corruption were showing up and the ones they saw were smaller than normal. Zalia started to see the tracks and traces of more active wildlife, as if they weren’t being hunted so thoroughly here as they were back south. She wondered if that was because the point of disruption for the ritual had been as far northwest as you could get while remaining in Endaria, while she had entered in the southeast. It was a reasonable conclusion to make.
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They actually ran into a town that still had inhabitants on the fifth day.
It was a tiny town, no more than twenty buildings in all, by Zalia’s count. They could tell there were still people about because the few people still in the town ran at the sight of them, slamming doors behind their retreat.
“Well, that wasn’t what I expected,” Ember said.
“These are some pretty dangerous times, I’m not that surprised. What if we were here to steal their possessions?” Zalia said.
“Then a few doors wouldn’t stop us.”
Ember walked down the street.
“Hey! There’s no need to fear us, please. We want to provide any help we can,” she called out.
At first, there was nothing but slowly, ever so slowly, a few people began to come back out of hiding.
“Y-you, wait, are you- are you the Saint Ember?” a man called from a doorway.
“The what?” Zalia thought.
Ember paused for just a moment.
“That would apparently be me, yes,” she agreed.
Perhaps she didn’t feel like arguing with the townspeople on the specifics, simply wanting their cooperation so she could help however she was able.
“A passing refugee told us you could perform miracles,” another townsperson, a woman, called out.
Many of the people were leaving their doorways now, moving out into the open and towards the small group. Aylie looked like she was starting to get a little anxious so Zalia picked her up and onto Boreal. She always seemed to feel safer there.
The people slowly gathered around them, asking questions and making comments, all of which Ember bore with infinite patience, answering calmly and politely. Zalia was in awe, seeing something that she would never be able to do, not if she were Silver, Gold or Ascendant. Deal with that many people with such patience.
After some time of Ember asking her own questions and drawing out of the people what troubled them and what they needed, Zalia felt a warping in the air. It was originating from Ember, an ability perhaps?
She watched as the few injured townspeople had their wounds healed, a table with a bounty of food and water appeared, some of the houses had mild repairs made to their frames, holes in walls or damage from what was obviously from some type of fight. An old woman had a cane put in her hands and it looked as if she stood a little straighter, perhaps having some injury healed.
It was, well, without better words for it, a miracle as the townspeople had said. Ember had listened to each and every complaint and need of these people and when activating her ability, it had apparently tried to resolve all of those issues.
Looking at the finer detail though, Zalia could see that it was still a bit past the strength of the ability to deal with everything. Some cuts were only scabbed over, not fully sealed. The food was mostly very basic rations that weren’t anything fancy, though they would last. Some of the houses didn’t get repaired, one still with a hole in its roof.
“Please, I cannot do more for you now. I urge you to take what I have given you and leave this town to go south. Five days travel there is a camp being run by the rebellion and those fighting back against the invasion. They have food, supplies and most importantly, defences that can keep out the demons. We have just come from there ourselves and there was not much danger along our path,” Ember said, the townspeople listening with expressions of… hope on their faces. There was a little bit of awe, they still looked exhausted with bags under their eyes and dirt on their faces, yet there was hope now, too.
After her little speech, Ember turned to walk away as the townspeople began talking amongst themselves, arguing the sides of listening to Embers' plea.
Zalia helped as she could as well, letting her Healing presence finish healing the rest of the wounds, even catching some type of growth in one of the men… was that… cancer?
Filing that revelation aside, she let the Healing presence flow into a pair of fruit trees nearby as well, the trees blooming and fruits growing.
Then, she did something that she hadn’t really been expecting to do herself.
She knelt, pulling the tiny altar to Nateysta she had in her vault out using the Druid’s Grove ability. She placed it on the floor in front of herself and summoned some of the cave fungus as well, placing it atop the altar, using preparation to turn it to dust, dust that floated about the altar and began glowing a light purple.
“May the lord of the forests keep you hidden amongst the boughs of his trees, within the roots and behind foliage. Let the animals of his domain keep you safe from the invaders that seek to eradicate life on this world. Let the stars of the shining wolf guide you in your travels to whichever destination you so desire. This is my will,” she intoned.
The light purple dust formed both sparkling deep blue motes and misty dark patches within. Slowly, the entire formation dissipated into the air and Zalia put the altar back into her vault.
The townspeople were giving her odd looks as if they didn’t exactly know what to make of whatever she had just done. She didn’t really know what to make of it herself, to be honest.
“What was that?” Ember whispered.
“I’ve got no idea,” Zalia whispered back.
Ember gave her a look that let Zalia know she would be interrogated for it later. But, for now, Ember waved goodbye and they left the town, returning to their journey.